I think that season 2's first episode "The Child" would benefit a lot from HD as there is a lot more shadow detail in HD.
See the lighting info about the episode from memory alpha:

[Director Rob]Bowman and director of photography Edward R. Brown experimented with a different, even lower-key than usual style of lighting in this episode. Notably, this is the only episode from the first two seasons where there are no sheets of cardboard on the LCARS displays, which were usually necessitated by the lighting system used. However, Gene Roddenberry and the other producers did not approve of this lighting style, and by the next episode Bowman and Brown reverted to the series' usual style of lighting.

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Yes it looked different than the rest of TNG's 7 seasons but it also should show up better in HD than NTSC.
Also people have much better HDTVs than tube televisions from the mid-to-late 1980s capable of displaying higher dynamic ranges.

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Actually one of the best looking episodes (not a very good hour of tv, but thats a different issue) of early TNG, Damn I miss Bowman.

A lot of HD syndication channels preferred to buy the cropped version because idiots complain about black bars left and right, which is why it was produced.

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The HD remasters of shows like Thunderbirds, and the ground-breaking documentary The World At War were cropped too, and are only available in their mangled form, precisely for this reason. The original DVDs have long since been deleted, and are rather tough to get hold of.

I've got nothing against cropping to 16x9 (I'd actually be interested to see TNG presented like this), but I want the original versions too.

Really hope this happens, although HD in pan & scan is kind of an unwanted novelty these days, being so used to 2:35:1 and the other widscreen ratios.

AFAIK, DS9 and Voyager will never happen on Blu-ray as they were shot straight on to video. There are no HD film masters to clean up and transfer.

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DS9 and Voyager were shot on film and edited on tape exactly like TNG. As mentioned by someone in the comments over at TrekMovie, the "Making of DS9" book by the Reeves-Stevens goes into some detail on the subject:

Here’s the initial explanation:

“Every physical element of Deep Space Nine is shot on film, not videotape. However, that film is just a first step. As soon as it’s printed, it’s sent to Unitel Video, where it is transferred to D2 videotape. Then the film is put into storage and —provided no disasters occur while an episode is in postproduction—it never sees the light of day again.”

This paragraph points to this footnote:

“In the planning stages of The Next Generation, an important decision was made that still affects Deep Space Nine today. The choice Gene Roddenberry and the production team faced was whether to do the visual effects for the new series using film techniques or on video. Video effects were faster and less costly, but only worked on the television screen. Because of video’s low resolution at the time, there would be no final negative print from which film versions of The Next Generation could be edited together for theatrical release in other countries.

Ultimately, the decision was made to go to video, and Deep Space Nine continues that process today. Thus, although the resolution of the visual effects is much higher today than was possible in 1987, there are no final film prints of any episode of either series, and the episodes cannot be rescanned at the higher resolution necessary for high-definition television broadcast in the future.

Theoretically, it would be possible to return to the original raw film and redo all the visual effects at higher resolution, but such a step would be the equivalent of putting the show through the complete postproduction process again. It will be much less expensive to wait for enhancement technology to be developed so the final video versions of Deep Space Nine episodes can be reprocessed rather than being remade.”

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(Thanks to Mark R. Largent over at TrekMovie from which this was shamelessly copied)

EDIT: Beaten to it! Oh well, the above quote is still quite interesting.

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I've read that book and paragraph (and bought it used I loved that book.) It seemed to have been written especially for us future fans of HD and Blu-Ray. There's also this page I found a while ago:

I was reading a thread on here where posters were basically under the assumption that TNG can't be remastered to HD because it was shot on tape. Now, this thread went on for 11+ pages so I am not sure if this was ever corrected. But in case it wasn't or at least to reitterate the truth? Star Trek: The Next Generationwas shot entirely on 35mm film, including all of its visual effects! It was simply transfered to tape for editing and compositing. So though labourous, the could re-edit the episodes together using the original 35mm masters (and using timestamps for reference). This would be more difficult for visual effects, but is still possible. Below is an article I found written by someone who clearly knows about this process:

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"It is quite possible to remaster TNG in HD. As previously stated it was shot on 35mm film. Re-transferring and re-editing from film is not as difficult as it sounds. Even though the series was edited on video tape care was often taken at that time to reference KeyKode (the film equivalent of timecode) either by retaining this information in the extra timecode bits on the video tape or by transfer logs which match the videotape EDL to the film negatives' KeyKode. This makes finding the shots and re-cutting them quite easy. Even if this type of match-back is not possible there are many talented online editors who can eye-match the shots (although this does consume much more time than the match-back).

Many TV series have been remastered in HD by one of these two methods, although for distribution reasons some affiliates are not airing them in HD yet. Seinfeld was recently remastered in HD and re-cropped to 16x9 for syndication in HD. A show like Seinfeld however is very simple because it does not include any visual effects (with the possible very rare exception). All that needs to be done is a match-back and re-transfer/re-crop in HD, followed by colour grading and relaying the titles at HD resolution.

A show like Star Trek: TNG posses a bigger problem however mainly because of it's heavy use of visual effects. Now, I want to make a distinction here: to say that TNG's visual effects were done on video is not entirely true. The effects were composited on video, meaning the various filmed elements were layered together. However the actual elements themselves were shot on 35mm motion picture film just like the rest of the show.

The ship itself was a 7 foot miniature (a newer 3 foot miniature from season 3 on) shot in multiple passes with motion-controlled 35mm cameras. The film was transferred to videotape (Beta SP I believe) and then composited together into the shots you see in the final show. Now the original film negatives contain ample resolution for an HD transfer, so the actual shots of the ship do not need to be re-done with a computer generated version like they did with the original Star Trek. Re-transferring and re-compositing the miniature at HD resolution would be much faster and much cheaper and certainly look much better than CGI. The miniature work on TNG was some of the best even by todays standards, and even though CGI has all but replaced miniatures in Sci-fi TV (and most but not all sci-fi movies) this is simply because it is cheaper, not because it looks better. Compare shots of the Enterprise D in TNG (especially in the later seasons or ST:Generations) to any shot of the NX-01 in the Enterprise series and you can easily see how much more realistic TNGs effects were, despite their age.

And the ship was by no means the only effect shot on film. All cities and planet scapes were either large minatures or very detailed matte paintings which should hold up nicely with an HD transfer. Even effects like the transporter where shot on film. It was a fish tank full of glitter swirled around and again shot on 35mm film. All of these can be re-transferred and re-composited. Now I won't discount the possibilities that they may try to re-do some of the effects, mostly to in their minds add to the value of the re-release and to correct some problems (mostly seen in the first season). But those problems seem to be mostly due to time and budget constraints and often were problems with compositing rather than the actual elements.

As far as the time goes, the figure of ten to fifteen years is immensely absurd and I have no idea where that comes from. I have both worked on and supervised re-mastering projects for film and TV. Granted they have not been on the scale of ST:TNG but then again TNG may be the biggest remastering project out there, at least in TV. But I know first hand that re-masterings usually take a small fraction of the time that it took to originally transfer and edit the show in the first place. So considering that ST:TNG was produced at a rate of one season per year, and the remastering would only involve re-doing a small part of the work with tools that are much faster and easier than those available back then it would only take a fraction of the time. If I had to venture a guess I would say it would take a year to a year and a half. And that would be assuming they re-do some effects as CGI and depending on what kind of cleanup is needed. In fact TNG should take less time then the original one because the film elements are likely in much better shape (requiring less cleanup) and much more organized than the original series as well as requiring less effects to be re-done. FYI: Seinfeld is rumored to have taken less than 4 months to remaster all 10 seasons.

HD remastering of both films and TV are becoming quite standard these days, and there are companies who are dedicated to this kind of work. The only thing standing in the way of ST:TNG in HD is simply Paramount or CBS or whomever writes the cheques deciding that there is enough demand for both HD syndication and Blu-ray releases of the show. There has already been one TNG episode remastered in HD (although I'm not sure which one). It was done by the same team that did the original Star Trek remaster as a 'test' to show to execs. There are rumors floating around that the remastering of the whole series is already beginning but as of right now that is just a rumor.

Other shows have some big hurtles when it comes to HD remastering. Don't expect a HD version of Babylon 5 anytime soon if ever. Even though the live action was shot on 35mm and wisely composed in 16x9 (rather than TNG's 4x3) meaning that portion can be very easily remastered in HD, all the effects were done digitally and rendered only at 4x3 SD resolution. Making things worse the original models and project files were supposedly lost meaning they would have to be completely re-done rather than just re-rendered. The widescreen DVD release in fact was made from a HD re-transfer of the live-action elements, with the original 4x3 effect shots cropped to 16x9. Obviously there could be a Blu-ray version made from this but the upscaled FX shots would likely look terrible in HD, especially put next to the HD versions of the live action.

Obviously shows shot on SD video cannot be re-transferred in HD because nothing higher res than the SD video exists.

Finally to dispel a few myths:

As was already mentioned the original Star Trek was shot on 35mm not 70mm. I have never heard of any TV show being shot on 70mm since this would just be a complete waste. 35mm film contains resolution well above HD let alone SD. 16mm is about on par with HD as far as resolution, but shows a lot of grain. A lot of TV series were shot on 16mm and some that are produced for broadcast in HD these days still are shot on 16mm.

Quote:What about TNG though? It was shot in that cheap terrible 1980's TV film (think its 30 or 35mm film), and blown up on my 52 inch Bravia looks pretty bad.

First of all there is no such thing as 30mm film. And 35mm is not cheap or terrible. It is what most major hollywood blockbusters are shot on these days. The reason TNG looks bad on a big TV, is that the 35mm film lost most of it's resolution when it was transferred to the video tape of the era. I believe the best tape format available at the time was Beta SP and that's probably what they used.

Beta SP is analog and is only equivalent to about 330x486 pixels in digital terms. Digital Beta did not come along until the early 90's and delivered a Digitally stored 720x486 pixels (which is suitable for DVD mastering). This is why most films were re-transferred before they came out on DVD. Even though DVD is SD it still has superior resolution to the older broadcast video tape formats and required a re-transfer to Digital Beta. In the case of feature films this is easy because they were edited on film and seamless theatrical prints exist that can be re-transferred in one session rather than having to match-back or re-edit. You can see the difference if you watch an older film from the 80s on DVD (probably made from a re-transfer) and the same film on TV (networks often seem to use the older transfers they have had kicking around for years rather than the new ones made for DVD releases).

Because TNG was edited on video tape a D-Beta remaster does not even exist. Everything that has been released so far has been made from the original analog video tapes from the 80s. And that will remain the case until a full re-master like we are talking about here is done."

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I have no doubt that all of the filmed elements can be reused. The resolution may not be the best, but the model effects look great and I would hate losing them. I would hope if they did more CG work than replacing the original CG effects that they don't have the files for or lost filmed effects (more of a problem for DS9 and VOY), they would give the option to see either the original effects in HD and the new effects (obviously also in HD ). Granted, that would double the work, so I'm just hoping they re-composite the filmed elements. It's not like TOS, where the effects were really, really substandard and none of the filmed elements existed (It sounds like, from what the DS9 book says, that the spinoffs saved their elements, but I'm not sure if that changed or what happened since then). Plus, it would lessen Paramount's risk if they not paying even a cheap effects house to redo all the effects when a simple film scan and 10 minutes on a video compositor. Just my own thoughts.

(To compositors: that crack about 10 minutes wasn't meant as an insult to you. It was just meant illustrate how much simpler it would be to composite film elements than go ILM on effects.)

TOS episodes existed on film. All that was needed was to transfer the episodes to HD and to clean things up a bit.

TNG episodes do not exist on film. They only exist on video tape and the quality of the DVDs cannot be improved on. The way it looks now is the best it can ever look.

The only way to make TNG HD is to recreate every episode from raw film footage. The film still exists, but the film would have to be edited together again from scratch into a completed episode and new FX added. It's not, strictly speaking, going to be a remaster. The completed episodes that exist now can't be remastered in HD.

TOS only had to be transferred again. TNG will have to go through seven years worth of post-production. A much much greater challenge than remastering TOS to HD. How long will that take? Well, it took seven years the first time. (Then again, this time around the audio, music, and sound FX are basically done and won't require the work involved the first time through post-production. Still, make no mistake, this project is going to be much much more labor intensive than remastering TOS was.)

The only way to make TNG HD is to recreate every episode from raw film footage. The film still exists, but the film would have to be edited together again from scratch into a completed episode and new FX added.

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In the film and TV business this is called conforming an edit since the editors work is already done and the original high resolution footage needs to be conformed to the edit. Currently when a TV series edits on downconverted standard definition DVCAM after the edit is complete the nonlinear editor's edit decision list with timecodes (as XML of AAF files) is used to conform the original high definition tapes. Usually this is somewhat automated once the footage is loaded in. Dissolves and effects are rendered, CGI visual effects are added and a master is ready.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s though the tape-to-tape linear videotape editing systems had an EDL (edit decision list) which was a semi-proprietary format (usually saved on 3.5" floppy discs) that had minimal information such as tape# and timecodes in & out for each edit to be able to edit from videotapes of the film telecine to create a videotape master. If that EDL material were printed out and saved it would help assistant editors and a post-production-supervisor's work on TNG-Remastering.
If not then all the raw 35mm footage will take a lot more effort to catalog the 35mm film to be able to locate scenes and takes used and then edits eye-matched to the original master.

Eye matching 7 seasons of episodes would take years but not 7.
If EDLs exist and notes were kept then conforming the takes used for an episode is greatly reduced. Then the film must be telecined to HD and footage handed over to CBS Digital for the visual effects shot work to start.

As a side note to the dicussion above, CRT monitors have vastly better color quality than all but the most expensive LCD's. When I switched from CRT to LCD it was shocking how washed-out everything looked. Sadly now, I don't even notice.
But it would have to be a good CRT. The one that died on me was a high-end 21" I'd picked up from an computer recycler for $70 around 10 years ago. So it had good dot pitch, refresh up to 120hz, and could do super-high resolutions.
However, I'm sure the better LCD's will continue to come down in price over time.

I have no doubt that all of the filmed elements can be reused. The resolution may not be the best, but the model effects look great and I would hate losing them.

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The big potential improvement in TNG FX isn't so much in the model quality (although certain aspects of the 4ft model, like the deflector - could stand to be improved), but the relatively limited shot selection - how many shots of the E-D from above are there, for instance? (It was almost entirely shot from below - technically above since it was upside-down - not for artistic reasons, but because the model was a lot easier to handle that way since the design was so top-heavy).

Even just a few new stock shots to mix in with the standard ones would be nice.

(It sounds like, from what the DS9 book says, that the spinoffs saved their elements, but I'm not sure if that changed or what happened since then).

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I'd have to check EAS & Drex Files to be sure, but ISTR that while many of the models still exist (Doug Drexler's posted renders of a lot of them), some of them are damaged due to newer versions of the software not reading them right, combined with them not being designed for HD resolution. And they don't necessarily have the data to just rerender the scenes straight up even if the models were perfect.

I was just going to post that. It's the Doomsday Machine now, and in standard definition - it looks stunningly bad.

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What was so bad about it? The cropped framing? Or the SD picture quality or both?

I would never want 16:9 to be the only version available, but I would be interested in seeing it presented properly, cropped judiciously without in-frame tilting, in full 1080p with the new widescreen visual effects. I'm sure there are exceptions here and there, but I feel that most of the live action shots in TOS and TNG would not be detrimentally hurt by trimming the top and bottom.

I was just going to post that. It's the Doomsday Machine now, and in standard definition - it looks stunningly bad.

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What was so bad about it? The cropped framing? Or the SD picture quality or both?

I would never want 16:9 to be the only version available, but I would be interested in seeing it presented properly, cropped judiciously without in-frame tilting, in full 1080p with the new widescreen visual effects. I'm sure there are exceptions here and there, but I feel that most of the live action shots in TOS and TNG would not be detrimentally hurt by trimming the top and bottom.

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The challenge would be bridge shots that included someone sitting at ops and other people standing. Would all the heads fit in? Would you end up with an awkward half Worf out of frame? Etc...

Not saying it would be perfect by any means, and yes the leveled bridge of TNG and the many times Riker performed his maneuver next to Data's station would be particular challenges. Still be curious to know how TOS held up from a framing standpoint.

It's easy enough to view a rough version simply by hitting the zoom button on a widescreen tv, but of course the loss in picture quality and lack of control over the tilt make this the least appealing viewing option, on par with stretching the 4:3 image to simply fit the width of 16:9.

The challenge would be bridge shots that included someone sitting at ops and other people standing. Would all the heads fit in? Would you end up with an awkward half Worf out of frame? Etc...

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AviTrek see this post from the other [What new FX/editing do you want to see in the STNG-R?] thread.

TOS-R honored the original framing of TOS by using pillarboxing.

The Twilight Zone is out on Blu-ray now and also honors the 4:3 framing using pillarboxing.

in the early 2000s the HD cable channel got the HD licensing rights to broadcast Hogan's Heroes. They cropped & stretched the image to fill the screen.

Universal HD broadcasts Hogan's Heroes in 1080p High Definition, with the picture being "cropped" and stretched to fit 16:9 television screens, rather than being "pillarboxed" as most non-widescreen programs are on high-definition TV.

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If you want to know what it would look like see that show on Universal HD.

I think CBS Digital would do the same framing with TNG-R as they did with TOS-R and honor the original framing so compromises are not made.

The challenge would be bridge shots that included someone sitting at ops and other people standing. Would all the heads fit in? Would you end up with an awkward half Worf out of frame? Etc...

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AviTrek see this post from the other [What new FX/editing do you want to see in the STNG-R?] thread.

TOS-R honored the original framing of TOS by using pillarboxing.

The Twilight Zone is out on Blu-ray now and also honors the 4:3 framing using pillarboxing.

in the early 2000s the HD cable channel got the HD licensing rights to broadcast Hogan's Heroes. They cropped & stretched the image to fill the screen.

Universal HD broadcasts Hogan's Heroes in 1080p High Definition, with the picture being "cropped" and stretched to fit 16:9 television screens, rather than being "pillarboxed" as most non-widescreen programs are on high-definition TV.

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source
If you want to know what it would look like see that show on Universal HD.

I think CBS Digital would do the same framing with TNG-R as they did with TOS-R and honor the original framing so compromises are not made.

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I agree CBS will keep the original framing. My comment was, that if they tried to crop it would be difficult because of the multi-leveled bridge. Just another reason why they won't crop(beyond original artistic intent)

In the end I'm sure that's for the best. There is no need whatsoever to change the framing. I'm just a little surprised that since the effort was made for TOS, that the 16:9 version was not included on the blu-ray release, but then I suppose that would have required additional disks.